


It's Been One Week (Almost)

by Kiranokira



Category: My Engineer (TV), ด้ายแดงซีรีส์ | Until We Meet Again The Series (TV)
Genre: Background Dean/Pharm, Background Win/Team, Eavesdropping, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Shopping Malls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiranokira/pseuds/Kiranokira
Summary: King has been officially dating Ram for six and a half days, and he is not doing well under the pressure.•“Do you think it’s normal to be, sort of, nervous? Early in a relationship?”With resignation, King crystallizes this moment in his memory: he’s in a shopping mall with one foot in a sneaker he doesn’t own asking a complete stranger about relationships.His love for Ram has made him into a very weird person.
Relationships: King/Ram (My Engineer)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 225





	It's Been One Week (Almost)

As of Tuesday, King has declared a blood feud with all relationship discussions that are had within his ability to hear them. Even the ones had by strangers. He has been Ram’s boyfriend for six and a half days and he is terrified enough, thank you. He is well aware that there is an abstract yet objective baseline for what constitutes a Decent Boyfriend, and he knows he’s nowhere near capable of reaching it right now. Or even _soon._

He is older than Ram, he is more experienced than Ram, and he is absolutely petrified of Ram.

That alone would automatically disqualify him from even _taking_ the Decent Boyfriend exam, if such a thing existed.

All he wanted to do today was wander the shopping mall, clear his head, and maybe pick up some new sneakers. And now he’s stuck in a restaurant, head very much unclear, and overhearing two terrible people in the booth behind him talk about the world’s most unrealistic relationship.

“He bought you a house,” Terrible Person 1 says.

“Team, come on,” Terrible Person 2 says. “We bought it together. I just can’t pay everything up front right now, so he covered part of my half. Even after we’re married, I’m still going to pay him back. _Anyway,_ it’s a beautiful house, but it’s not too over the top.”

King takes a savage bite into his shrimp and chomps on it grumpily. He could buy Ram a house if he wanted to. Someday. _Tomorrow,_ even. He wouldn’t, but he _could._

“How many bedrooms?” asks Terrible Person 1, whose name King refuses to remember because they do not deserve to have a name as long as they continue this conversation.

“Team.”

“Pharm.”

“…Five.”

_“Five!”_

“Not bedrooms, though! One will be a home office for P’Dean, one will be a guest room, one’s a nurser—never mind.“

King rolls his eyes emphatically and finally turns to his bag to search for his earphones. The universe is taunting him, and he refuses to allow himself to be victimized this way. He’s not _so_ terrible that he deserves this cosmically _mean_ treatment.

So maybe he and Ram will never have kids what with Ram…not being the biggest fan of them. And they’re _definitely_ not doing dogs. But…cats are nice. Birds, too. Snakes. There are options. Kids aren’t a necessity for every couple or anything. He knows that.

His breathing’s gone a little shallow for some reason, though.

Dating is supposed to be fun. Why did no one ever tell him he’d be frantically comparing himself and Ram to every other couple in the known world? _Someone_ should have told him he’d be like this.

“Did you just say nursery?”

“No!”

Are they _still_ talking!?

“You were about to say it!”

“No I wasn’t!”

“You _definitely_ were.”

King hates them both. And naturally, he seems to have left his earphones somewhere that isn’t inside his bag. Fuck. _Fuuuuck._ He’s only just started eating his food, too, and the terrible people behind him haven’t even _ordered_ their food yet.

He can only hope they talk about something else. And that Terrible Person 1 is single.

However, Terrible Person 2 seems to answer to a higher power who wants to ruin King’s day some more. “How’s P’Win?” they ask.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You must be happy he’s home,” Terrible Person 2 says with mischief clear in their voice.

There’s a pause, and then Terrible Person 1 says, “Look.”

King wonders, despite himself, and just as he’s decided he doesn’t need to know, Terrible Person 2 says, “Is that a new car?”

“No— _yes,_ but that’s not what I was—”

King contemplates the practical utility of his spoon as a murder weapon.

“Is that a _Porsche?_ You came here by motorcycle taxi!”

“I was showing you the email! The email! No—Pharm! Hey! Don’t look at the background! Pharm!”

The laughter of Terrible Person 2 blends discordantly with the sounds of scuffling and silverware clattering while, presumably, Terrible Person 1 tries to regain control over his phone from Terrible Person 2.

“I’m more interested in the sports car your boyfriend bought you, sorry. How long has he been back again? A week? And he’s already bought you a car?”

“Nursery.”

Silence.

King snorts as he chews his rice.

“…We’ll continue this later.”

“When? When you have P’Dean?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, you can enlist P’Win.”

“Or we can agree never to talk about any of this again.”

King almost says, “Great idea!” aloud.

“Deal,” Terrible Person 2 says.

Luckily, they _do_ actually change the subject—finally—and King is permitted by the universe to finish his lunch completely undisturbed by external forces.

Which leaves him the luxury of being disturbed exclusively by internal forces instead.

•

He escapes the restaurant as soon as he can, leaving the terrible people talking about their actress friend. He wanders around the shopping mall in even more distress than he was when he started, deliberately leaving his phone in his pocket and pretending he has no boyfriend.

That would _also_ disqualify him from the Decent Boyfriend exam.

He has no way of knowing how much time is passing, but his feet eventually take him to the footwear store, and it’s as good a place as any to sit down and take stock of his life. With his foot halfway into his fourth potential purchase, King has to admit that he’s not doing well emotionally right now.

“Are you okay?”

King jolts and whips his head up, startling the guy standing next to the bench.

“Y-yeah, Phi,” King says. He offers a shaky wai. “Just, uh. Fine.”

The salesperson who’s starting to hate King for requesting multiple shoeboxes without shame stops near them with a bright smile for his newest customer. “Can I get you anything?” he asks.

“Yeah, thanks,” the guy says. “I’m looking for these.” He shows the salesperson his phone screen. “I tried to find them online but they were sold out everywhere.”

All at once, King recognizes his voice. _He’s one of the terrible people._

Hm.

…

He’s handsome.

Of course he is.

Fine.

But the boyfriend’s probably hideous.

“I can check for you,” the salesperson says. He points to the screen. “In that size?”

“Yes, please,“ the guy says with a friendly smile.

Once the salesperson’s left to check their stock, King’s mouth acts without permission from King’s brain.

“Were you in the Hawaiian restaurant about an hour ago?”

The guy’s face undergoes several shifts of expression before settling on curious. “Uh, yeah. Why?”

“I was sitting behind you and your friend,” King says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear. I forgot my earphones, so I heard you talking—”

King’s brain finally wrestles King’s mouth into shutting up.

The guy’s eyebrows do an almost imperceptible twitch, like he’s trying to guess where this is going.

King says, “You and your friend seem really happy,” and adds a weak hand gesture that he intends to mean, _Good for you_.

King’s marvelous social skills—of which King is very proud—would be ashamed of him right now. If they were here. Which they’re not.

“Here you are!” The salesperson returns with two boxes. ”We only have the two sizes above and below. Would you like to try them on?”

“Oh,” the guy says. “Um. They’re not for me.” He glances at King so quickly King wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t staring at him. (Why is he staring?) “They’re for my boyfriend. Our feet are about the same size, though. Thanks.”

King’s brain mercilessly shuts down all eleven filthy jokes that threaten to burst from his mutinous mouth.

“If you need anything else, let me know!” the salesperson says.

“Thanks.”

While the guy sits down on the bench next to him, King decides to change his perception of him. King has zero desire to talk about his nerves with anyone he actually knows (and who knows Ram). Besides, this guy seems nice, and he’s a little older, _and_ he seems to be in a stable relationship with another guy at that, so—

“Do you think it’s normal to be, sort of, nervous? Early in a relationship?”

With resignation, King crystallizes this moment in his memory: he’s in a shopping mall with one foot in a sneaker he doesn’t own asking a complete stranger about relationships.

His love for Ram has made him into a very weird person.

He was a cool guy once. Admired, even.

The guy, though, just gives King a small smile, holding one of the sneakers he asked for in both hands.

“Yeah,” the guy says. “I was terrified when I started seeing my boyfriend. I think he was too, honestly.”

King says, “Really?” and clings to a new tendril of hope.

The guy nods. His smile grows as he toes off the heel of his shoe. “We were both in the swim club at our university. He’s older, and it felt like he was going out of his way to be a pain in the ass to me _specifically._ He was a tyrant during practice, and he was all over me _outside_ practice. Anywhere I turned, he was there.”

King smiles in spite of himself and wonders if Ram will tell a story that sounds like that one day.

Then again, Ram offering stories to strangers about his personal history probably doesn’t need to be on King’s list of concerns for the future.

“Were you annoyed by him following you around?” King asks.

As the guy laces up the sneaker, he lets out a soft laugh through his nose. “Nah,” he says. “I just didn’t know what he wanted from me. He’s just generally really nice to people, so I couldn’t tell if he was flirting with me for fun or if he actually wanted something serious.”

King leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “That actually sounds kind of like me and—” he hopes the pause is imperceptible “—my boyfriend.”

It’s odd, how nice it feels nice to say to a stranger. To offer that objective truth: Ram’s his boyfriend.

The guy grins at him. “Were you the chaser or the chased?” he asks.

“Chaser,” King says wryly. “He doesn’t talk much. It was kind of my mission to make him talk, and then I, uh, sort of…fell for him.”

The guy stands up in the sneakers and takes a brief test stroll around the area. “That’s cute,” he says. He sits back down and tugs off the pristine sneakers one by one with his hands instead of his feet. “So why are you nervous?” he asks. “Communication issues?”

King says, “No,” in defense of Ram, then thinks more deeply about his side and admits, “Maybe.”

“It’s usually communication stuff,” the guy says. “It’ll probably be frustrating to hear, but I’ve been with my boyfriend for four years and it still happens with us sometimes.” He throws King a grin and says, “Usually his fault, though.”

King grins back.

Oh, why not.

“Is there, like, a way to know if you’re a good boyfriend?“ King asks. “Like, do you have a bar in your head? Requirements, that kind of thing?”

The guy slips on one of the second pair of sneakers and immediately pulls it off again with a grimace. “Not sure what you mean,” he says. “I guess not? I just kind of go by him. If he seems happy, I’m doing good. Kind of basic, but.” He tips his head to the side with nonchalance. “He usually won’t tell me if he’s upset, though, so that’s something we’re still working on. I’m kind of bad about that, too, though, honestly.”

King nods, mind transporting to wherever Ram has decided to spend his afternoon. It’s nearly evening now, though—he might already be back at the condo.

The guy stands up, one box in each hand. “Listen,” he says. “I have to get going, but I think if you’re worried about being a good boyfriend or not, you’re already on the right path.“ He taps King’s upper arm gently with a box. “Just, y’know. Talk to him about this stuff. If he knows it’s something you’re worried about, maybe he’ll end up telling you you’re doing fine, y’know?“

King tries a smile and says, “Thank you, Phi,” and gives him a sincerely grateful wai. “I will.”

The guy wishes him luck and heads off to the counter make his purchase, leaving King with a half-settled mind and an urge to go home and see his boyfriend’s face. He slips off the sneaker he will not be purchasing and puts it neatly back into the box so the salesperson will hate him slightly less. When he checks his phone, he’s not surprised to find that his notifications have piled up over the last—oops—three hours.

He checks Ram’s first.

The most recent one says, _[Are you coming home soon?]_ and the domesticity of it has King’s heart pounding with extra strength, like it’s relearning the process and overcompensating.

The three previous messages are carefully doled out, one per hour.

2:32, 3:44, 4:45.

King writes and sends a quick message. _[I’m leaving the mall now. Do you want me to get anything on my way home?]_

‘Read’.

Within seconds, _[No thanks.]_

King beams. He stands up and thinks about making a joke about condoms, but resists. First of all, he knows they have plenty.

On his way out of the store, staring at his phone and determinedly ignoring the spine-melting stare of the salesperson, King nearly walks into someone and apologizes as he sidesteps out of their way.

He’s six or seven paces from the store when he overhears the guy he was talking to say, “That’s him.”

King thinks, _Me?_ and looks over his shoulder. Standing very close to each other near the store entrance are the guy he was talking to and the guy he nearly walked into, both looking at King with interest. _Oh, fuck that,_ King thinks, after one single solitary glance at the boyfriend, _he’s not ugly at all._

Nothing about this world is fair.

The hot boyfriend gives King an apologetic grin and says to the guy, “You wanna be any louder, baby?” in a voice sweeter than honey.

The guy grimaces and tells his boyfriend, “Don’t call me that in public,” then gives King a sheepish smile.

Apparently they communicate just fine.

•

Later, he and Ram are hanging out together in the bedroom, snug in a comfortable silence. Ram’s on his back playing a game on his phone, and King’s on his stomach staring at his own phone without seeing a thing, working up the nerve to— _“communicate.”_ Based on the advice of a total stranger.

King squawks and jerks around, catching Ram with a feather above King’s bare foot. His phone is face-down on the bed.

“Where did you get _that?”_ King asks.

Instead of answering, Ram strokes the feather over King’s foot again and grins when King repeats his squawk.

King draws his legs in to protect them and sits up, discarding his phone on the bedside table. “Listen,” he says. “I want to ask you something.”

Ram stares at him for a long few seconds, then raises his eyebrows. “Okay,” he says.

King makes eye contact and locks on.

_Maybe he’ll end up telling you you’re doing fine._

Yeah, sure.

“How are we doing?” King asks. He scrunches his nose and passes both hands through his hair, breaking eye contact to scowl down at the blanket. “I sound like a therapist, don’t I?”

“A little,” Ram says.

King waits in vain for him to say more, and when Ram says nothing, he sighs.

“I just want to know whenever you’re upset or if I do something that upsets you or…something. I guess. Kind of.”

When he dares to check Ram’s reaction, King is unsurprised to find Ram staring at him in confusion.

King says, “Never mind,” and pushes off the bed. “I’m gonna take a shower. Forget it, I’m just—”

“It hasn’t even been a week,” Ram says.

King groans and sinks back onto the bed. He folds his chest over his thighs, allowing his stress to pull him down like a punishing gravity field. He isn’t expecting the warm pressure on his back, but he makes a soft noise of thanks as Ram rubs his palm up and down King's spine.

“I know,” King says. “I’m just—” _bad at admitting when I’m bad at things; new to this much feeling all at once; petrified of hurting you_ “—freaking out.”

Ram exhales a laugh.

“Sorry,” King says. “This just— _you_ , um. You mean a lot to me, and I don’t want to—” _catastrophically fuck up everything between us_.

Ram’s thumb moves gently back and forth over the curve of a vertebra. He does this for so long, so rhythmically, that King actually thinks he could fall asleep like this.

He didn’t know he was this flexible, either. Huh.

When Ram does speak, it’s just a simple, “I think we’re doing okay.”

King makes a low noise of amusement at the middle-tier review.

“So far,” Ram adds.

There’s another long silence. More back rubbing.

Then, “But—again—it’s been _six days,_ P’King.“

King sits up and gives Ram a narrowed glare. “You think I’m ridiculous,” he says.

Ram opens his mouth, then closes it. And keeps it closed.

Well. That’s not gonna fucking fly, is it?

King shoves Ram onto his back with a single, solid push, satisfied with how easily Ram allows it. He even stays put when he hits the mattress, giving King a “well?” kind of look.

This definitely a more appealing direction.

King swings a knee over Ram’s hips and braces his hands on Ram’s forearms over his head. “Still think I’m ridiculous?” he asks.

Ram pretends to think, gaze sliding thoughtfully off to the side for a couple of seconds. Then he makes eye contact again and nods.

The need to kiss the smugness out of him is powerful, but King waits.

Then Ram says, “P’King,” and looks, and King gives in.

The easiest part of these six (and a half) days has been this: kissing Ram and feeling how Ram is just as enthusiastic about kissing him. It’s the tangible proof King craves that he’s doing some part of this well.

He especially enjoys when Ram skates his fingertips through King’s hair and holds onto the curve of his neck, keeping him still like he’s making sure the kiss goes on longer.

Kissing is nice. It’s always been nice, even with other people.

But kissing Ram is a whole level above what King has ever known before.

It’s not the kisses themselves that make the experience so shattering. Ram’s not as _technically proficient_ as even the first person King kissed, for example. It’s just…directly connected to how much King loves Ram, and probably also that Ram clearly enjoys kissing King, and in these electrical, reality-shattering moments, King can hope—in the darkest crevice of his heart—that Ram loves him as much as King loves him.

It’s been six and a half days.

Seven, now.

And he’s a little less afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it'd be amusing to have one of the UWMA characters give King relationship advice, but I thought most of them would be too good at it, so I sent Team. But I made him older so he'd actually have some experience and something useful to say. \;D/


End file.
